Why is Twitter Censoring Free Speech?

There has been a disturbing trend of increasing censorship against free speech on Twitter. This comes not from radicals or extremists on the platform but from Twitter itself. Needless to say the increased Twitter censorship is unsettling.

Twitter’s new safety policies

On Tuesday Twitter Safety made an announcement about new policies rolling out in the coming weeks.

“We stand for freedom of expression and people being able to see all sides of any topic. That’s put in jeopardy when abuse and harassment stifle and silence those voices. We won’t tolerate it and we’re launching new efforts to stop it.”

This makes no sense, as users on an egalitarian platform don’t have the capacity to “stifle and silence” one another. Everyone stands on equal ground. The only actor with the power to silence users is Twitter themselves, and that is, seemingly, exactly what they are doing.

Is Twitter “shadowbanning” users with dissenting opinions?

There have also been allegations that Twitter “shadowbans” users who hold dissenting opinions. To shadowban is to secretly suppress the visibility of an account and its content, without informing the user or their followers that anything has changed.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams was likely shadowbanned late last year due to his ongoing commentary on the US presidential election.

Twitter bans journalists but verifies violent extremist groups

Despite the supposed concerns about safety, Twitter continues to allow accounts like that of Islami Chhatrashibir, the student wing of a Bangladeshi Islamist group who are linked to terrorist organizations and known to kill free thinkers and cut the tendons of their political rivals.

This is a Bangladeshi extremist group often known for killing secular Professors & freethinkers. Well done normalising terrorism, Twitter ? pic.twitter.com/JeJMUYCGXu

Twitter (now famously) banned Milo Yiannopolous, a gay journalist, while assigning groups like this and the Muslim Brotherhood “Verified” status on their platform.

With a track record like this, can Twitter really be trusted to curate our content for us?

Does Twitter manipulate “trends on Twitter”?

Gizmodo reported last year that Facebook manipulates the “trending” module on its homepage to influence the content users see. Former Facebook employees admitted to removing political news that was counter to the narrative Facebook wants to enforce and “injecting” stories that align with Facebook’s political views.

Given what we know, how surprising would it be if there is something similar happening with trends on Twitter?

Why did Twitter suspend competitor platform Gab?

Twitter recently suspended the account of Gab, a competitor micro-blogging platform created in response to censorship and built around the idea of free speech.

Free speech is non-negotiable

Twitter has long been seen as a democratizing force and a revolutionary technology in the truest sense. Its role in the Arab Spring was an exemplary demonstration of how technology can create positive social change on the largest scale.

But that was over six years ago. Today Twitter wants to enforce murky censorship policies and crack down on the free speech of its own users for holding differing opinions.

And while it is political tension that has brought the issue of censorship to the fore, free speech goes far beyond partisan politics. The free exchange of ideas is a process uniquely responsible for determining the future of technology and society and it is one that we must protect at all costs.

If this trend towards censorship on Twitter continues, I predict the emergence of one or more viable alternatives and a mass exodus of content creators, free thinkers and influencers away from the platform. Only time will tell, but things are not looking good for Twitter.

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Should you be punished for denying the holocaust? No. Should you be punished if you proclaim the denial of the holocaust in front of a crowd of people the size of a stadium? I think so.

Now insert twitter where, you have the majority of users in the former, and a few celebrities in the latter. Nothing is as simple as “omfg twitter is censoring us, this is big brother, we’re all doomed!”

Once you accept that the Arab spring, like the Ukraine coup, was a CIA/State construct with multiple purposes at home and abroad, for globalist goals espoused by Hillary Clinton, Twitter’s utility to the deep state becomes obvious. Techno-coups became all the rage.

P. Henry

Yes, this is why everyone needs to move to Gab.ai

Chief Presiding Judge

Stop reading Infowars and Breitbart. It’s rotting your brain. The only globalist is Donald Trump which is why he makes all of his crappy products abroad.

End Cuckoldry

Jack Dorsey and Sam Altman of Y Combinator hid all of my Tweets from non-followers, hid other people’s Tweets from ME so I couldn’t comment on most Tweets, and then taunted me by liking my Tweets with the verified accounts of several of their companies (no one else but followers could even see my Tweets, but multiple of their companies were able to find and like them).

This is a sick game for Silicon Valley Psychopaths like Altman and Dorsey. These are the next Hitlers.

That doesn’t sound very likely. Hitler comparisons are not helpful but your comment will stay up in the interests of preserving free speech.

End Cuckoldry

A lot of what occurs historically seemed ridiculous until proof came out. No one believed the NSA was collecting everyone’s information until Snowden blew the whistle.

Don’t expect ya to believe me, but I’ve had multiple accounts where those with leftist views (or at least those outside hard right circles) would become invisible to me so I couldn’t respond to them. Easy thing for Dorsey & Co. to accomplish if you understand networking theory (nodes, links, etc). I’d be surprised if this hasn’t happened to MANY people on the greater right who interact with diverse networks & connect people who otherwise wouldn’t share ideas (i.e. Republicans and Black Nationalists).

Have been outright shadow-banned on every account so far (3).

Altman knows and dislikes me personally and is friends with Dorsey, against whom I successfully promoted lawsuits for various types of executive malfeasance to larger audiences on Twitter (I’m pretty well versed in corporate law – T14 law school, etc) so I’m fairly certain two petty tech nerds had all the incentive they needed to use their positions in inappropriate fashion.

What’a more concerning lately is that I’ve noticed an actual trend of neo-nazis, white supremacists, and far right extremists in general pretending to be libertarian so they can get a pass on spreading their propaganda even though they don’t believe in free speech.

That said, as for Twitter, you have the wrong idea. Twitter is a private company with rules and moderation. Free speech is simply the right that the government cannot arrest you for what you say. It does mean that users are immune to the rules of any arbitary site, and that companies hosting private platforms are not allowed to moderate as they see fit.

Because social media plays such a fundamental role in the dissemination of information and expression of ideas within modern political discourse, First Amendment protection of users is necessary to ensure the purpose of the First Amendment is fulfilled.

If social media owners / executives / investors don’t like it, they can move on to other companies where Constitutional protections allow them to discriminate against and oppress vulnerable minorities.

Fetid Tuna

The only explanation of twitters keenness on Islam is that its CEO is some sort of jihadi or pedophile, why else would every account that objects to pedophilia is shut down?

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Hey, my name is Aaron and welcome to my site.

I created Freedom & Fulfilment to write about my experience and share ideas on self improvement, spirituality, and how we can build the best lives for ourselves and others.